West Bank mosque vandalized in retaliatory ‘price tag’ attack

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A mosque was vandalized in a Palestinian village south of Bethlehem in an apparent "price tag" attack retaliating for the serious injury of an Israeli girl.

Graffiti spray-painted Sunday on the mosque read "revenge for Adele Biton," "regards from Adele" and "price tag." The tires of a car parked nearby also were slashed.

Adele Biton, 3, has been unconscious and in serious condition in an Israeli hospital for more than three weeks after the car driven by her mother was struck near Ariel by rocks thrown by Palestinian teens. The car struck a truck, injuring the driver, Adele and her two sisters, aged 4 and 5.

Five Palestinian teens from the town of Kifl Haris near Kalkilya were arrested in late March for the attack.

"Price tag" refers to the strategy that extremist settlers and their supporters have adopted to exact retribution for settlement freezes and demolitions or Palestinian attacks on Jews.

Also in the West Bank, Palestinians rioted for a sixth day in the wake of a Palestinian prisoner’s death by cancer. On Saturday, Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers in the Gush Etzion area, and threw rocks and firebombs at Jewish settlements. Also, Israeli soldiers prevented Palestinians from igniting agricultural fields near the northern West Bank community of Yitzhar.

A day earlier, an Israeli soldier was injured in the hand near the West Bank village of Bayt Liqya, located approximately five miles northwest of Jerusalem, where troops faced dozens of rioters following mosque prayers, Army Radio reported. Similar riots erupted in Hebron and the Al Arub village north of the West Bank city.

In the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiya, dozens of Palestinians staged a riot amid burning tires. Three men were arrested, the radio station reported.

On April 4, thousands attended the funeral in Hebron of Maisara Abu Hamdiyeh, a 64-year-old Hamas terrorist who had died two days earlier from cancer in an Israeli hospital. In the rioting spurred by his death, two Palestinian males, 17 and 19, were killed.

Hamdiyeh was serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for recruiting another terrorist to carry out an attack on a Jerusalem cafe.

The Palestinian Authority has blamed Israel for his death, saying it withheld medical treatment. Israel’s Health Ministry reported that an autopsy revealed the cause of death as complications due to cancer.